Rapid method to experimentally measure the gas permeability of micro-perforated films

A workable setup for rapidly measuring the permeability of the micro-perforated films has been developed, using both static and flow-through methods. The static method simulates the normal package conditions and thus the data obtained can be used for designing modified atmosphere packages. The drawback with this method is that it takes a long time to give results, typically two days for one run and a week to run three replicates. The flow through method is very simple and less time consuming. It takes about two hours to get a set of readings and three replicates can be obtained in half a day. The drawback of the flow through method is that it gives a higher reading than the static method. A regression equation was obtained to get a correlation between the readings obtained by the flow through method and the static method (R2=93%). These methods can also be used to measure the carbon dioxide permeability.